Web-based education tries to get more social

— -- Three University of Pennsylvania dropouts are getting venture capital and the backing of Ivy League universities in their quest to get college students to use Lore.com, an interactive Web-based tool designed to make the academic process more efficient.

On Monday, the seven-month-old start-up unveiled an overhaul of Lore to make the platform more similar to a social networking site, such as Facebook.com. The site is also used for online courses and course management tools, including grade books and other tools.

Universities, such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton, have adopted the platform, according to co-founder and CEO Joe Cohen, although Lore has an uphill battle in its bid to unseat Blackboard, a much larger company that offers similar services.

Originally known as Coursekit, Lore's founders say their vision is to build a more consumer-friendly product on which students will interact with each other , not just with professors and college administrations.

"We've completely re-designed the platform in the new version," said 21-year-old Cohen. "It's an order of magnitude more beautiful, easy to use, and powerful."

One highlight is that university instructors will have the ability to make their courses available for the public to "audit." The idea, Cohen says, is to create a global network of students and teachers, giving people in rural areas or emerging economies access to college-level course information free or at low prices.

In addition to Cohen, a Brooklyn native who studied business at Wharton until he dropped out last year, Lore is run by Dan Getelman, 22, chief technology officer and a Bronx native who studied business and engineering at Penn until last year, and Jim Grandpre, 21, the firm's chief architect and a Rhode Island native who had been studying engineering at Penn until he left in his sophomore year.

Cohen says Lore has raised $6 million, with investments from former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who used Lore to teach "Computer Science 183: Start-up" at Stanford University this past spring.